• "I don't understand. So you are saying that I'm 'misunderstood'" I bared my teeth at my english teacher. "Charlotte, listen. You wrote it yourself on the paper." Ms.Wellings explained as though taling to a particularily slow 3rd grader. I could easily be compared to one. I felt anger rise in me as it did often. Hate, for no reason. I wanted to hurt her. But all I did was leave the room.

    "Charlotte? whats wrong?" Sierra asked, seeing my hateful eyes peirce the ground. I glared at her and walked into the bathroom. I needed to hurry. I musn't hurt a soul. She followed me in. "Get out." My hands clenched into fists, and instantly rose to her face. She laughed a little. "What a faker."

    I screamed under my breath, trying to fight the hate and pain battle wearing my heart to peices. I fell to the floor of the empty bathroom, gasping for breath. I vaguely noticed a small girl enter, and gape at me from the corner of the room. "What?" I hissed, my eyes reduced to painful slits. She fumbled with the handle in her haste to leave the room.

    "Hi Charlotte. Do you want to go to the dance with me?" Chad asked for the twentieth time. I had said maybe before, but something took over me now. "NO! I don't want to go the stupid dance with you. Don't you know that no one likes you?" I screamed, and instantly the heads of everyone in the cafeteria turned to me. I didn't care. I just growled at the room, and walked out of the cafeteria. Even the lunch monitor was too shocked to stop me. I walked straight out of school, straight out of those hateful, misunderstanding eyes.

    I felt as if someone was cheerfully sawing my soul in half. I screamed as if so, the eternal pain was so great. I felt as if part of me was dying, right there on the floor. Curling up into a ball and burning. And everyone knew that the little book-loving Charlotte was gone, gone forever.

    "How are you doing?" Mr. Thompson asked with interest. Stupid therapists. "Very bad." I said in a matter-of-fact voice. "Hmmm." He wrote in his notebook, and I had a strong desire to take the notebook and rip it to shreds.

    I put my ear to the door, listening with all my might. "Incurable. I'm sorry, but I don't know what else can be done." Mr. Thompson sighed. "I-i-incurable? are you telling me that my Charlotte is crazy?" Mom stuttered, her voice faint and weak. "I wouldn't use that word, exactly. Just... not... in the right.... state of mind, I would put it professionally..." He said uncomfterably.

    "YOU CAN'T PUT ME IN A HOUSE FULL OF CRAZIES AND NUTTERS AND RETARD-" I screeched, but mom drove on. She hadn't said a word. She didn't look at me, and she looked as if I were a disapointment. She probably wouldn't care if I rotted away in that mental institution.

    I had died. I had definetly died, because my mind wasn't working right. It kept arguing, and I'm sure shampoo bottles didn't use to talk to me. "No, you are definetely not insane. I would know an insane person when I saw one." The shampoo whispered. Sure.

    I wasn't scared, because I didn't have a reason to be scared. I was dead. One down on Insanity St. ! a few more disturbed people to go, and the wagon's full. I wondered whether rain was dead people's tears, or rain dead people's tears. I think the second one was right. I thought back on my intelligent conversation with the lamp:

    "I just light up all day, it's very boring."
    "Oh. I'm crazy."
    "I see."
    "Yes. But I have an advantage, because sane people don't get to talk to intelligent objects such as yourself."
    "True."